Hollyoaks rolled out the red carpet to mark its 30th anniversary at a special screening in Liverpool attended by stars past and present.
The Channel 4 soap celebrated the milestone on Monday night with cast, crew and fans gathering at St George’s Hall to preview a week of explosive anniversary episodes.
Introducing the event, Channel 4’s chief content officer Ian Katz revealed that over the past three decades the show has seen 57 births, 88 marriages, 51 broken engagements, 294 deaths and 13 serial killers — joking that it made the fictional Chester village “about ten times more dangerous than Tijuana, Mexico, the murder capital of the world.”
Among those in attendance were Gemma Bissix (Claire Banks-Devine), Tamara Wall (Grace Black), Kieron Richardson (Ste Hay) and Chelsee Healey (Goldie McQueen).
Anna Passey (Sienna Blake) and Georgie Porter (Theresa McQueen) also walked the red carpet, joined by Alex Fletcher (Diane Hutchinson), Ruby O’Donnell (Peri Lomax) and Kirsty-Leigh Porter (Leela Dexter).
Jessica Ellis (Nancy Osborne), Nick Pickard (Tony Hutchinson) and Ellis Hollins (Tom Cunningham) completed the line-up of current cast members celebrating the milestone.
They were joined by former stars Gemma Merna (Carmel McQueen) and Duncan James (Ryan Knight), as well as Jamie Lomas (Warren Fox), one of the soap’s longest-serving villains.
The special week’s storyline centres on the long-awaited wedding of Tony and Diane Hutchinson, which quickly descends into chaos when a dramatic plane crash rocks the village.
At least three characters are expected to meet a horrible end as the stunt marks one of Hollyoaks’ most ambitious set-pieces to date.
While the show is normally available to stream early on Channel 4’s online platform, this week fans can only watch Hollyoaks when it airs at 7pm on E4, to keep the anniversary twists under wraps.
The celebrations also featured a reunion for Brookside legends Sue Johnston, Ricky Tomlinson and Louis Emerick, who appear in a crossover episode more than 20 years after the Liverpool-set soap ended.
Creator of both Hollyoaks and Brookside Sir Phil Redmond, who makes a cameo this week, said the series had stayed true to its founding goal of creating bold, youth-focused drama.
“They kept saying, ‘teenagers don’t watch telly and they can’t concentrate,’ and we said, ‘well if you make it, they will’ — so we did,” he told host and Drag Race UK winner Danny Beard.
Asked whether Brookside could return permanently, he added: “My personal opinion is they should never have stopped it.”
Around 200 fans joined the screening, surrounded by props and costumes from the show’s history.
“I love every bit of it still now,” said Pickard. “We’ve been like a family — the cast and crew — and you just have a laugh every day.”
Kieron Richardson reflected on nearly 20 years as Ste Hay, the first gay man in a British soap to live with HIV. “It showed you can live a healthy, normal life with HIV,” he said.
Jennifer Metcalfe (Mercedes McQueen) added that her character’s cancer storyline had helped her feel closer to her late father. “It was such a big challenge and I loved it,” she said.
